Ninja Salvaging Series - breaking a Kronos

Ninja salvaging has been a quite profitable so far. Starting with Dominix pilot sending 150mil for entertainment, then Machariel pilot giving another 400mil. I was up 550 mil so far. I doubt carebears make that much while running lvl4s in a day. After dumping all the loot and counting my ISK, There are so many targets and so little time. Not to get overwhelmed I decide to take a break in hope mission running hype won't be over when I get back.

A Kronos that could tank

I continue with my ninja activities. As today seems everyone is in a shooting mood I give priority to shiny ships. I visit Kronos, an ultimate mission running ship of Gallente kind. After flying around, salvaging and stealing some wrecks, Kronos pilot ABDUL RASHID has enough and opens fire. I quickly swoop under his guns and proceed killing his drones.

Now it's not my first encounter with Kronos. I've already scored one kill some days ago, surprisingly, without me needing to change ships. This one, however, seemed to be a different story. He had a bastion module, which meant his tank won't break as easy this time.

You never know until you try. As usual, I bring one logi ship to get extra aggro in addition to my Enyo. After some minutes teasing and providing reps for Enyo, I was not able to get any reaction whatsoever. I guess he knew better. After shield has dropped I started getting to his armor, which, as I feared, didn't move an inch. One repair cycle would undo everything. I decided to bring an Orca.

When one neutralizer doesn't cut it

Once Orca enters room I refit my salvager to a small neutralizer. For that extra kick, I swap tank modules to dps. It might not be much, but I have time. Sooner or later his tank should break. Or so I thought. I look at the time and I see already more than 5 minutes have passed and I haven't done much progress as he reps his armor to full without a sweat. I need a change in my game. Problem is, I do not have means to hold him as only Enyo has aggro. Should I refit to full rack of neuts? Should I swap for a bumper ship? Then it hits me...

He is in bloody bastion mode. Which means he can't move or warp anywhere. Cycle is 2 minutes and I only need 1 for aggression timer to end. I stop shooting and innocently just orbit him while carefully watching his velocity on overview. He suddenly starts moving. Probably thought he will manage to warp out, which is a valid expectation. It only would take me to lose focus for a moment and he would be gone. What a bummer that would be. I toggle on my scrambler and start shooting while he goes to bastion mode again. We are back to square one. Except this time I deaggress right away and wait my 1 minute timer out. Once it passes, I switch to my Brutix, lock him again and start unleashing pain.

Phew. Now he is going down. Or so I thought. Again. While his armor drops somewhat, I can't pass 50%. I keep pressure for more than 5 minutes, but he just wont give up. I've had enough. I open fleet hangar and find 2 extra medium neutralizers. Ungroup my guns, take out ammo, put guns into cargo hold, fit 2 more neutralizers.

Finally armor goes below 30%. I guess 3 neuts did it. I believe we spent half an hour in space. I initiate convo to see how he feels.

ABDUL RASHID > stop

Zosius > ransom

ABDUL RASHID > ply

Zosius > 800mil

ABDUL RASHID > need

Zosius > 800 transfer now

ABDUL RASHID > 30mil  plz

I start with 800mil. An entertainment tax, clearly fair price for keeping him busy for such extended period of time. ABDUL RASHID has other thoughts though. He thinks 30mil should be more than enough for his Kronos ship.

Zosius > lol

Zosius > 300

ABDUL RASHID > need mone

Zosius > me too

ABDUL RASHID > plz

Zosius > send me isk

ABDUL RASHID > all money

I guess he missed the part where I mentioned 300mil. According to him, 30mil was all he had. A guy flying Kronos, had only 30mil in his wallet. Can this be true? Could someone really have spent last of his isk on missioning ship this time? Let's find out.

Zosius > i said 300

Zosius > not 30

Zosius > eject kronos

ABDUL RASHID > ok stop

Zosius > eject

Zosius > so i can sell shit

Zosius > stop repairing

Zosius > eject ship so i sell it at the market

Zosius > and send you money-300mil

I offer a compromise. I suggest him to eject his ship so I could take and sell it on the market. Ongoing price is 1.1bil. I would take my 800mil tax and send back his 300mil.

ABDUL RASHID > ok 30+270

ABDUL RASHID > send

ABDUL RASHID > stop

Suddenly things take unexpected turn. ABDUL RASHID magically finds extra 270mil in his wallet.

Or should I say 297mil. He accidentally mistypes sum and sends 27mil. Realizing his mistake he quickly sends another 270mil ISK. From "only" 30mil he ended up finding 327 million ISK in total. Trust was broken and I had no choice but to relieve him of his ship... and his pod, which he didn't seem in rush to warp out.

A carebear flying over 2.5bil worth ship and pod. With only 30mil..eghem, sorry, 327mil left in his wallet. 

Zosius > gf

ABDUL RASHID > :(

Zosius > you should not fly what you cant afford to lose

Zosius > im sure you have heard it, right?

ABDUL RASHID > hmm  0 money thx  may frend  -300mil

Zosius > you said you had 0 when you sent me 30mil

Zosius > then you got 270 more

ABDUL RASHID > 30+270 look

Zosius > you should leave high sec and join a corp!

Zosius > have this experience as means to have a fresh start

ABDUL RASHID > 6 year  pauze   1 day active

ABDUL RASHID > and pod :(

Zosius > you activated 1 day ago?

Zosius > Welcome back to EVE

ABDUL RASHID > yes     6 yearpauze

Zosius > i'm sure a lot has changed since then

Zosius > maybe not missions though

ABDUL RASHID > back may item?

Zosius > lets do this. If you join pvp corp and get 20 kills, I will give back you your items

Zosius > if you do 10 kills, I will give 1/2 items

ABDUL RASHID now claimed to really have 0 isk remaining in his wallet. Leaving suspicions of having such round number in his wallet, he now had an excellent opportunity. An opportunity to start fresh. For what he lost, he could have bought over 5000 rifters. Coming back after 6 years, having not seen anything but missions, he finally had a positive experience. He now had a purpose. He had a reason to stay in EVE. Would he manage to score 20 kills, he would get rebate on his dropped items from his Kronos! Will he take up on this offer? We will never know as he left convo without saying a word.

Ninja Salvaging Series - A carebear in a shiny ship

Building relationships

Rei Stareine > please leave

What a conversation starter! If I didn't know any better, I would say it's a great potential to build a relationship. Rei Stareine was flying a Machariel. A top tier pirate faction Battleship. Usually these kind of ships are flown by people who have seen EVE. They know a thing or two. Right? Rei Stareine was 2012 pilot with 2.6 years experience in EVE so he must know stuff. You would think. A further background look into his killboard suggests he hasn't seen much of EVE outside high sec. Who would remind him that he is playing a massive multiplayer game if it weren't for players like me? Conversation is half the fun when Ninja Salvaging so sometimes I try to play out various scenarios.

Zosius > im doing a mission
Rei Stareine > you stealing my salvage
Zosius > its free for everyone
Zosius > if it was yours
Zosius > concord would kill me

This time I go with "pretend I'm clueless" scenario. It doesn't always work, but sometimes carebears like to "teach" me a lesson about EVE mechanics. Usually it ends up with lesson, but not the one they would expect.

Rei Stareine > if you werent old here
Rei Stareine > I would let you
Zosius > well, too bad nothing you can do about it
Rei Stareine > jizz go do some lvl 4 missions or something, you'll earn more
Zosius > so i will just keep on my business
Zosius > i dont have skills to run lvl4 myself. and salvage/looting pays better
Rei Stareine > lvl 3 pays better
Zosius > i beg to differ
Rei Stareine > go read some articles

As expected, I already get great tips about how I should run lvl 4 mission to increase my income. Even lvl 3 mission is clearly much better investment in my time. I know nothing and I should go read some EVE mission guides. That would certainly open my eyes. Well, to be fair, I indeed do not know much about missions. I got my "eyes opened" and stopped doing them when I reached lvl2s. All my knowledge about missions is from salvaging and looting from others.

Zosius > I am reading books while i salvage your mission
Zosius > seems productive time to me
Zosius > lets go next room!
Rei Stareine > now give me back my tractor unit
Rei Stareine > or things get serious

Rei Stareine demanded I would give his tractor unit back or things would get serious.

I quickly adjusted my sitting posture from relaxed to intense. What should I do now? His mobile tractor unit was nothing but a space dust. If he finds out, I won't have a place to hide. To avoid his wrath, I decide to pretend that his mtu is still intact and he has nothing to worry about. It will be sold at the market for a fair price. Perhaps I can move this under the rug and change the topic.

Zosius > nope. I will sell it on Dodixie
Zosius > you can buy another if you really want
Zosius > lets go man. i still got space in my cargohold
Zosius > there is one more room waiting
Rei Stareine > douche
Rei Stareine > go get a life
Rei Stareine > bb

Things took "unexpected" turn. Machariel warped out before finishing his mission. Was he annoyed by my presence? Doesn't he care about his standings? What a crazy guy. I wonder if I will see him again.

A quick escalation

After Machariel pilot warped out I continued with my operations. I salvaged here and there, shot an mtu here and there. After passing time around I notice Rei Stareine is back in the system. That's a surprise. I go back to pay him a visit. We departed on such bad terms I wanted to make things right. As expected, Machariel is back to same mission and already finished 2nd room in which we met. I find him at the 3rd room, which, based on only few wrecks present, I guess he just started.

Before I could loot and start salvaging his freshly made wrecks I get yellow boxed and shot at. I don't know what Rei Stareine was doing when he was away, but this time he seemed much more confident and determined to keep me out. Without giving any warning he kept his word and things got serious. Well, serious for him.

His Machariel was not tanking too well aggro from the npc and my Enyo. I do a quick convo to see if I can get a ransom.

Zosius > so
Zosius > ransom and we call it a day?
Rei Stareine > stop this
Zosius > 400mil and i stop
Zosius > yes no?
Rei Stareine > ok
Zosius > you got 10 seconds
Zosius > time is up

He was running out of structure and I am not a patient man when it comes to isk transfers.

Rei Stareine > there
Zosius > you ran out of time.
Zosius > it takes only 5 seconds to transfer isk
Rei Stareine > common
Zosius > look at the bright side, you can buy a newly fitted machariel
Zosius > and plus an MTU!
Zosius > gf

Unfortunately his time was up. 10 seconds have long passed and I had no choice but to relieve him of his ship.

No t2 hardeners.. sigh. Another one going for the end ship without the means to fully equip it. I hope down a Machariel and -400mil ISK he will start living within his means. God knows, he might have even enjoyed using guns for other purpose than npc shooting and will try different things besides high-sec missions. One can only hope.

Ninja Salvaging Series - Quick ISK

After dealing with a tough nut Gila, I resume my salvage inspection operations. Next I visit a Dominix. Your average mission boat, frequently met in Gallente space. I'm quite experienced in fighting this ship. Even with his large drone bay, I manage to kill drones before my armor rep runs out of nanite paste.

A quick ransom

I start looting and salvaging and quickly get yellow boxed and shot at. You know the drill. Lock the target and scram, switch to drone window and quickly kill them one by one. Once drones are out of the picture, I got all the time I need. 

Once I'm sure armor breaks I initiate convo. I get greeted back, which is always a good sign. Without any sentiments, I proceed giving my terms.

I ask for 150mil, which he promptly pays up. That must have been a quickest and easiest ransom I had so far. Usually people make up some stories of why they can't pay or try to stall time other ways. But Michael had no time for that. Unfortunately for him, as bastard I am, I betrayed him. I always wanted to use infamous "suddenly betrayal" lines and now I got my chance. 

*Disclaimer*

To carebear apologists that call me out on being an asshole for not honoring high sec ransoms: You are right. Though I would like to point out that I used to honor ransoms, however once scrambler usually was toggled off, instead of appreciating me honoring a ransom, I received nothing but flame. Suddenly carebears changed their helpless tone to hostile, of how I robbed them of their isk and what an asshole I was, even if their ship was free warping out. I also tried to launch a honorable ransomers club, but couldn't get any positive feedback from my clients. Since ransoming business was going slow and I was still an asshole, I decided that noone gives a shit and so I declined to honor ransoms in high sec until further notice. At the moment I collect "entertainment tax".

Ninja Salvaging Series - A tough nut to crack

Oh boy! Local is unusually busy today. So many ships on scan, so many carebears busy with their missions. The hardest question is - who shall I visit first?

A tough nut to crack

To change gameplay a bit and not to stick too much with only battleships, I start paying more attention to cruiser signatures. From my experience cruiser in most cases means a pirate cruiser and not your average t1 vexor. I scan out a Gila. Over a year old pilot, with 5.0 security status. Looks like a mission expert to me. Let's see how he likes a company. After buzzing around his mission, Gila locks and opens fire.

Missiles do not do much to my Enyo and drones are quickly dispatched. I warp in my logi pilot with hope to get aggro so I could make this little encounter quick and dirty. Well, plan succeeds. I get aggroed, but dps seems to be too much for my Augoror to handle. I do not know what the hell is going on. After burner fit with quite few resists I get down to structure and am forced to warp off before my 2nd logi can enter. While 1st logi warps to celestial, I enter with my 2nd logi. Which he aggroes as well and forces it out before my 1st logi comes back.

Bloody mission has 2 gates that I need to burn through. While Enyo is in no big danger and can tank quite well, I can barely scratch his shields, so I will need that extra dps from my logi. My both Augorors are without any armor. Before jumping to the last room, I duly rep myself and this time jump in together. Spider tank on and Gila can't seem to break anyone's tank. Seeing no options he suddenly starts burning away from gate. He is afterburner fit and while webbed, still has over 250m/s speed. I don't think of it much until I realize my 2nd logi does not have any drones and he managed to kill 2 hobgoblins of my first logi. So now I got 2 logi repping each other with a total dps of 2 light drones plus Enyo. I need my Orca.

Should have thought about it sooner. By the time my Orca enters last room, Gila is almost 150km away. Of course in deadspace you can't warp, so I will have to catch up the old fashioned way. This will take awhile since orca is only 90ms faster. After some minutes I get an idea to deaggro and burn to my Orca with Enyo while keeping tackle on Gila with my logi ships. Problem is that I do not have webifier and going back and forth to swap to my Brutix will take a lot of time too. This Gila pilot really makes me work for my kill, but ninjas are also very patient.

Thankfully, before I make my decision Gila's shields dropped below 30%, which is a great sign. I stick a bit more and sure enough it seems Gila ran out of juice and exploded. I even forgot to start a convo for a ransom. I was just happy to see that god damn ship become a wreck.

Does this mean I will stick with my BS targets? Hell no. The more you have to work for your kill, the more it is rewarding. If anything, I will be happy to scan out a cruiser and pay him a visit.

Ninja Salvaging Series - Welcoming new players to EVE

There is constant influx of new players to our EVE. Everyone loves newbros and I am no exception. Everyone likes to help out and do their part. Since many players start their careers in mining or missioning, it's very easy for them go get stuck in those activities. Thankfully there are a lot of players working tirelessly to bring emergent gameplay to highsec. For miners there's New Order and for mission runners there are Ninja Salvagers. As I've mentioned earlier, Ninja Salvaging was my starting career and had it's peak before I joined EVE, which was 5 years ago. Not as popular, but still alive we make sure to bring content to high-sec residents.

There's still hope

I start my operations and do a scan with my probes. I get few battleship hits, but also a Myrmidon. After shooting some mtu's, I decide to pay a visit to that Myrmidon. Since he happened to be just under my probes and be one of top hits, why not. I warp in and start looting his wreks while checking pilot history. Oh, a 2015 player. Having in mind that it's still January, this guy must be fresh. I'm not sure if it's a new player or perhaps some alt grinding standings. Myrmidon pilot targets me and opens fire. Well, I guess he's a new player after all. I greet him with a handshake..erhem..I mean warp scrambler.

While exchanging ammo I open a convo. I don't plan to ransom this time, but perhaps give advice or two.

Zosius > hi there

Lucrania ll > \o

Lucrania ll > hey

Zosius > whats up

Lucrania ll > just sittin here

Zosius > missioning?

Lucrania ll > yeah

Zosius > how is isk

Lucrania ll > bad

Zosius > hehe,  new to eve?

Lucrania ll > yes

Zosius > welcome then

Surprisingly the guy was very cool about his ship soon to become a wreck. At this point I would expect to hear a sob story how his ship is everything he owns and etc. It's then when I usually deliver an invaluable lesson about first rule of EVE -  "don't fly what you can't afford to lose". But not this guy. After I pop his ship I try to ask if he heard about ninja salvaging, but apparently without a ship he didn't feel the need to listen to me anymore. He closed convo and left on his way. After doing some background checks I noticed on his 3rd day he scored a battleship kill with his interceptor. So instead of whining about skill gap and waiting for bigger ship, he just goes out there, right to the action. Let's hope he doesn't stay in high-sec running missions for too long. I have big hopes for you mr. Lucrania ll.

You sir are a thief

After getting welcoming a newbro by killing his Myrmidon, I encounter another pilot of young age - Menkali, just over a month and already in a Megathron. I remember I didn't get into battleship for at least 3 months. Regardless, today it feels like system is full of fresh cadets out of Federal Navy Academy. I believe I will be the first ninja salvager this guy meets as well, since I barely have time to loot anything before he opens fire. I greet him too.

For such a new player, I sure as hell had hard time cracking his tank. After getting nowhere for some time I decided to bring an Orca to refit my salvager into neutralizer. After good 10 minutes neutralizer seems to have done the job and tank started to drop. I initiate convo and ask for a ransom.

Zosius > 100mil

Zosius > hello?

Menkali > hey

Zosius > too late

Unfortunately it took awhile for him to reply and ship exploded. Now it explains a lot. After checking his fit I see 2 thermic and 2 kinetic hardeners with 2 local reps. No wonder why my enyo had hard time breaking his tank. I do not know why he fit kinetic resists as Sansha rats dish out EM/Therm. Well, this time mistake worked out to his advantage. What followed was a very education conversation.

Menkali > what ya talk'n about?

Zosius > ransom to let you go

Menkali > why'd you come at me in the first place lol

Zosius > i was defending myself

Menkali > does'nt explain ? you where there in the first place

Zosius > it is my way to earn isk

Zosius > salvage your stuff

Menkali > steal my stuff?

Menkali > exatly

Zosius > confiscate

Zosius > not steal

Zosius > because you dont take them, so i do

Menkali > not steal? explain

Zosius > you need to salvage and loot your wrecks

Zosius > or someone else will take them

Menkali > you don't become suspect salvaging?

Zosius > ofcourse not

Menkali > don't give me that... I might have just started playing, but you sir are a thief

Menkali couldn't understand how someone could be so rude and take his hard earned loot and salvage. Just imagine, another player in his mission. What kind of madness MMO game is this?